The Conan the Barbarian saga has appeared in a variety of forms in the gaming community from simple boardgames to high tech multiplayer online games. The intention of all these games is to immerse the player in the sword and sorcery world of Hyboria. Robert E. Howard created the original Conan story but he had no hand in creating various games other than they were based on his works.
Hyborian Gates is a collectible trading card game.
Conan's first appearance in Dungeons & Dragons with game statistics was in Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (TSR, 1976), in a section of the book devoted to ROBERT E. HOWARD'S HYBOREA.
Conan was defined by Gary Gygax for the first time for Dungeons & Dragons in his article "Conan!", an installment of Gygax's regular "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column, in The Dragon Magazine #36 (April 1980).
Capitalizing on the release of the Conan movies, TSR created two licensed Conan adventures for their Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game in 1984. The line sold very poorly and in time was discontinued; the adventures (called "modules" in the Dungeons & Dragons community) often found their way to the bargain bin in most hobby shops but are now often prized by collectors.
The Conan Role-Playing Game was published by TSR, Inc. in 1985. This boxed game was designed for players age 10 and up contained a full-color map, a 32-page will book, a 16-page reference guide and a 48-page notebook about the land of Hyboria plus two 10 sided dice. The series was very short-lived producing only three adventures each based on novels from the Conan series.
Supplements:
GURPS Conan for the GURPS roleplaying system was produced in 1989 by Steve Jackson Games. The other GURPS Conan books were GURPS solo adventures and started a year before, with GURPS Conan: Beyond Thunder River
Supplements:
Conan: The Roleplaying Game, by Mongoose Publishing, was published under the Open Game License using a custom adaptation of the d20 System. The game comprises a 352-page rulebook (a second edition was expanded to 424 pages) and various add-on adventures and sourcebooks for both the first and second editions.
Supplements:
Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, by Modiphius Entertainment, is the role-playing game currently officially licensed from Conan Properties Inc. The main game consists of a 368-page full colour hardcover book using their 2d20 system. The game was launched in 2017 through a hugely successful Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign, and since then, a number of supplements have been published in book form:
Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age is a wargame published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1975. Designed by Scott Bizar and Lin Carter. See the Board Game Geek entry for more details.[1]
Hyborian War is a play-by-mail strategy game published by Reality Simulations as of 1985. The game gives players strategic control of a Hyborian nation.[2]
There is also an Age of Conan Strategy Board Game published by Nexus Editrice.[3]
Conan: Hall of Volta was released for the Apple II series, Atari 8-bit family, and Commodore 64 in 1984.
A version of the game Myth: History in the Making programmed by System 3 was rebranded as Conan: The Mysteries of Time and released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Published by Mindscape in 1990, this was a side scrolling game reminiscent of Castlevania.
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Main article: Conan: The Cimmerian |
This version was released for MS-DOS and Amiga in 1991 by Virgin Games, Inc.
Conan (2004) is a third-person perspective action adventure developed by Cauldron Software and published by TDK in 2004, "Conan - The Dark Axe" was a lengthy tale that saw Conan visit and fight in nearly all parts of the Hyborian world. The game was based primarily on R. E. Howard's stories but also paid homage to John Milius's movie, as well as to some of the Conan tales written by Lin Carter and Lion Sprague de Camp.
For the Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3. It was released in the US on October 23, 2007. Conan (2007) is a single player, third-person perspective videogame. The game combines a range of traditional video game challenges with a focus on particularly brutal game-play featuring decapitations and dismemberment. The game also features the voice-acting of Ron Perlman as Conan.
Age of Conan: Unchained is an MMORPG created by Funcom. In addition to typical MMO gameplay, it features PvP siege gameplay where players build and attack each other's cities.
Conan: Tower of the Elephant is a game made for the iOS by Chillingo Ltd.[4]
Conan Exiles is an open-world survival game made for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One made by Funcom.[5] The playable character is a player created character who is rescued by Conan.[6]
Conan Unconquered is a real-time survival strategy game set in the barbaric world of Conan the Barbarian where you must build your stronghold and assemble an unconquerable army to survive the savage hordes of Hyboria. Conan Unconquered was released on 29 May 2019.[7]
Conan Chop Chop is an action-adventure rogue-like game, released on March 1, 2022.[8]